As denials go, in a world where football managers are thrust in front of the cameras and left to skate carefully around sensitive questions, Brendan Rodgers was about as emphatic as he could possibly be. This question was about AC Milan’s striker Mario Balotelli , a player who Rodgers had praised in a previous interview on Liverpool’s pre-season tour of the US.

I was asked the question about Balotelli and spoke about what a talent he is and excellent player he is,” Rodgers explained.

“I can categorically tell you that Mario Balotelli will not be at Liverpool.

“He is a wonderful player, but an AC Milan player. I just gave my opinion of him, but that doesn’t mean I will be signing him.”

Three weeks later and things have changed with a fee agreed and Rodgers on the verge of bringing the former Manchester City striker back to England and the Barclays Premier League in a deal set to cost Liverpool £16m.

The rumours about Liverpool’s interest have been bubbling away quietly all summer but in amongst all the other transfer window noise it almost went unheard. The denial from Rodgers put everyone off the scent and meant the debate – about whether he is a good fit for the Reds or not – has only started in earnest now, at the last possible moment.

Having just sold Luis Suarez, last season’s top scorer with 31 goals, the Anfield side clearly need to bring another striker in, but whatever Balotelli’s attributes are in front of goal they aren’t really the ones up for discussion or comparison.

If the debate was purely about football it would be a relatively short lived one. Balotelli is a natural goalscorer who has had no trouble finding the back of the net at any of the clubs he’s played for. Those clubs include both Milan sides either side of his spell at Manchester City, not to mention thirty-odd appearances for the Italian national side. He’s played at the highest level, he’s played in Europe, he’ll slot straight into a Liverpool squad that now has a Champions League fixture list to contend with alongside the domestic one.

It might take some work for Brendan Rodgers to figure out how to get the best out of both him and Daniel Sturridge, but that’s the kind of problem any top-level manager would be glad to have and one Rodgers has faced and overcome in the past. It isn’t too long ago that people were questioning how Suarez and Sturridge could play in the same side.

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Other names reportedly in Liverpool’s frame, including 28-year-old Radamel Falcao, 27-year-old Edinson Cavani and even 26-year-old Karim Benzema, seem to be a little on the old side for Liverpool, at least in terms of the club’s apparent policy of avoiding big-money signings of anyone over the age of 25 since John Henry assumed ownership. Having only turned 24 earlier this month Mario Balotelli fits in quite nicely with that policy.

Does the fee even count as ‘big money’? The £16m reported is a fraction over the £14m the Reds are still hopeful of receiving for a far less proven striker, Fabio Borini, and the arrival of his compatriot might just get that deal moving again.

All of the above is open to a certain amount of debate, but the debate still struggles to get past Super Mario’s ‘controversial’ tag. Will the bad outweigh the good if the deal goes through?

Jose Mourinho, his manager when the pair were at Inter Milan, described him as ‘unmanageable’. Is that part of the attraction for Brendan Rodgers, to do something his old mentor couldn’t do?

Can Rodgers succeed with Balotelli where other managers have failed? Can he tame Balotelli, without him losing any of his instinct in front of goal?

Rodgers certainly got a lot of credit for his efforts in taming Luis Suarez. The Uruguayan went from Premier League pariah to winning just about every player of the year award going and, back at the end of May, it was getting hard to find a bad word being said about him. By the time he reverted to beast mode, baring his teeth in the World Cup finals in Brazil, he’d effectively already left Brendan’s care anyway.

Exactly what does Rodgers need to tame? Selfies with shotguns won’t go down well at Anfield, but it’s easy to forget that he was still a teenager the day before he signed for Manchester City and only 21 at the time of the infamous fireworks in the bathroom incident. Better he races his Ferrari around a go-kart track than down Anfield Road, and does it really matter if he snoozes in the luggage rack on the train?

The controversy that surrounded Suarez had far more of an impact on his teammates than any of the incidents on that list from Balotelli. When Suarez found himself in trouble his club was in trouble too, losing a key player for an increasing number of games each time. Suarez didn’t miss a single game for Liverpool through injury, but this will be the fifth successive season he’s missed a large chunk of one through suspension and his absence for his national side is now being measured in years. Balotelli did miss games for Manchester City through suspension – he was sent off four times – but seems to have moved away from on-field controversy in his time back in Italy.

Throwing a dart at a youth team player isn’t funny, nor is crashing your car on the way to training, but most of the incidents reeled off as proof of Balotelli as trouble are at worst amusing, at best hilarious. He won’t be the first Liverpool player to have problems with his driving either.

Balotelli won’t bring terrible controversies, he’ll bring madcap antics. For £16m, and with his record for mentoring younger players, this could be the shrewdest move Brendan Rodgers has made since arriving as Liverpool boss two years ago.

With his goals and those madcap antics Balotelli will ensure football remains fun for Liverpool fans, even if it might take a bit of time for the whole of the Kop to come round to the idea. And there’ll always be something for the manager to talk about at his press conferences.